The Interval Conservation Theory of Time Travel

Time travel is said to be impossible for two reasons - it is usually agreed that to move back in time, an object would have to move faster than the speed of light, which, according to most models, would require an impossible amount of energy. But another argument is that time travel would create "causality paradoxes" and that it is therefore impossible. I here present a counter-argument to this assumption. I propose that time travel to the past not only causes no paradoxes, it also causes no changes to our present.


Let there be light!

Let us imagine a light bulb. This light bulb is linked to a sensor that's particularly sensitive; and if one shines a light upon it, the bulb will shut down, forever. So the thought experiment is simple: a bulb that can emit light, but will cease functioning if it receives light.

Now, imagine that the rays of light somehow get sent back into the past. So, at 12:00 we have a light bulb (off). At 12:01 we turn the light bulb on, which emits light. At 12:02 this light enters a sort of wormhole of some kind, and exits into the past, at 11:59. The naive assumption is to assume that this light will hit the bulb sensor, making it impossible for it to shine a light when comes 12:01. In which case the rays of light can never exist, causing a paradox.

The apparent paradox is actually but an illusion, caused by the fact we are forgetting an important aspect of reality: it moves.


You've got to think in four dimensions!

Every objects in the universe is in constant motion on the axis of time, moving forward at the rate of 1 second towards the future, for every seconds that pass. After the bulb emits the light at 12:01, one second later this light falls into the time travel device at 12:02. When this light is sent to the past, it reaches the light bulb located in the past. The light bulb located in the present still exists. And when the bulb in the past cease functioning at 12:00, the original light bulb is now located at 12:03, and is not affected by the light; for the light is located in the past, along with the malfunctioning bulb. The bulb in the present is preserved from the effects of the past, simply because it is, like all objects, moving away from the past, at the rate of a second every seconds.

All of matter is but a record of the past. The position of objects is determined by the result of their past momentum and direction. And therefore the "true" past might change, but this will not affect the objects in the present, as they have already recorded their version of their past. An analogy would be reading a book. Imagine I give you a book where "A" is written on page one, then "B" on page two, etc. As you read, you record "A" in your memory, then "B", etc. If I go back to secretly change the pages to "Z" instead, and then "Y", this does not change the timeline you have memorized from your own reading, which is "A", then "B". Similarly, if something went back in time to deactivate the bulb in the past, the bulb in the present would still constitute the "living memory" of the original unaltered timeline, and continue working properly.


We have to talk about your granddad.

This hypothesis has several powerful, noteworthy implications. It implies, for one, that travel to the past would not result in any changes in the present. Going back to kill Hitler would only prevent the rise of the Nazis in that past time frame; the present will continue remembering the rise of the Nazis and their effects on the present world. The argument can be reformulated to address the "grandfather paradox" - going back in time to kill your grandfather would not prevent you from existing, because your existence constitutes the memory of your grandfather in your original timeline, which is safely located in the present. Although the grandfather would die in the new past, records of him having a child will be preserved in the original present, along with you. The change in the past can never reach the present, due to the fact the present, along with its records, is "running" away at the rate of a second every seconds. An interval is conserved between the two time frames, preventing the past from interacting with the present, effectively cutting them into two different universes with different records (one original, and one modified).



This implication may be considered a prediction, making our hypothesis an official theory. The prediction may therefore be formulated as such: according to the Time Interval Conservation Theory of time travel, we will not notice any effects from potential time travelers, at least not from those that traveled to our past. Sending a light back in time will not cause the present bulb to cease functioning, eliminating any of the assumed paradoxes.


Another paradox that can be solved with our simple theory is the famous Ontological Paradox. If I were to go back in time to give Shakespeare the complete work of Shakespeare, the complete work of Shakespeare will nevertheless constitute a record of the original Shakespeare writing his books. And even though the Shakespeare in the new past might not write any longer, this will not prevent his work from existing, as the books are the result of a different timeline - the original one.


Conclusion

With this I hope it can be seen that most of the perceived paradoxes are the result of incomplete assumptions, and that they are solved by realizing the presence of an interval that is conserved, between the events, on the axis of time.

a reply to: swanne

In other words, time is moving forward at a steady rate so any changes in that past would have to move faster than the current speed of time?

Great argument.
Would practical time travel to the past not need to essentially move a observational reference frame toward a more ordered state of entropy ?
If we could violate The Second Law of Thermodynamics, then it seems plausible. I think it may be possible to observe the past, but to act upon it seems like a different matter. ( literally )

Perhaps traversing time will always take us to a different spacial coordinate (and visa versa), thus preventing causality violations.

I’ve heard it hypothesized that one would also need to physically travel to the same spot in the universe that the Earth was traveling through.
For example, to kill Hitler you would not only need to go back to a certain time in history, but also the same exact location that Earth was in the galaxy at the time due to the Earth not being in the same location it was years ago.

a reply to: swanne

This reminded me of your thread from 2014 titled Paradox Waves - Time Travel to the Past Does Not Affect the Present. I only skimmed this thread but I assume this is the same basic concept? I remember that thread from 2014 because I always thought it was a pretty clever solution to the paradoxes of time travel, but back then I was highly skeptical of anything related to time travel, especially time travel into the past, it was in the same category as the most fringe conspiracies for me. I remember replying with some criticism of your theory. It's funny how our perception of reality changes with time... now I've written several serious threads on the topic of time travel and parallel time lines, and no longer consider it a totally crazy idea.

a reply to: ChaoticOrder

Back before the 1920's we had a much more limited understanding of the speed of light.
The shake technology popular for code breaking back then projected different time slices of code on different planes, but they were all viewed as a "Far" composite where the exact "near" times did not interfere.

There is no hearT in Lil WaynNE's cover of "Framing Hanley"?

a reply to: swanne

First off, relativity does NOT preclude ftl travel. It merely precludes acceleration of a massive body to ftl.

People always make that mistake.

Jaden

a reply to: TheLieWeLive

The John titor story explains this. He claimed they use gravity sensors to manipulate space time to maintain their location relative to where they start as they travel through time.

Jaden

a reply to: Masterjaden
FTL good to go from A to B, and would certainly have temporal effects.
A practical time machine would have to be a localized entropy reversal apparatus to be useful.

originally posted by: TheLieWeLive
I’ve heard it hypothesized that one would also need to physically travel to the same spot in the universe that the Earth was traveling through.
For example, to kill Hitler you would not only need to go back to a certain time in history, but also the same exact location that Earth was in the galaxy at the time due to the Earth not being in the same location it was years ago.

As somewhat proposed by Nassim Haramein.

originally posted by: rom12345
Great argument.
Would practical time travel to the past not need to essentially move a observational reference frame toward a more ordered state of entropy ?
If we could violate The Second Law of Thermodynamics, then it seems plausible. I think it may be possible to observe the past, but to act upon it seems like a different matter. ( literally )

Perhaps traversing time will always take us to a different spacial coordinate (and visa versa), thus preventing causality violations.

If we are in a state of cooling Universe-wide... we could not replicate the thermo-dynamics of the past time nor the vortex of orbital position. Correct me.... ?

originally posted by: Plotus
If we are in a state of cooling Universe-wide... we could not replicate the thermo-dynamics of the past time nor the vortex of orbital position. Correct me.... ?

As far as I know, not according to current understanding of the law of physics.

In this amazing lecture, Sir Roger Penrose suggest that entropy is reset in a continuum of "big bang's".
He also speaks of time reversibility of physical laws.
Also he speaks of some kind of inverse relationship between the entropy of matter and the 'entropy of gravity".
To my simple mind, it sound like some kind of cosmic time machine, except the jumps are of the entire timeframe of the universe.
If things play out the same way entropy is reset, is unclear.

a reply to: swanne

There is no need to invent any fancy new names. Your idea has been around for 80 years I'd guess and is known as alternate/bifurcaing histories/timelines. It is a pretty popular scifi trope.

You still have the problem of the alternate timeline getting energy (the time traveler) from nowhere.

Besides the causality business, my personal view is that time travel into any past is not possible at all, because it does not exist anymore. You would have to somehow reconstruct the past universe state on quantum level to "travel into the past".

originally posted by: swanne
An interval is conserved between the two time frames, preventing the past from interacting with the present, effectively cutting them into two different universes with different records (one original, and one modified).

To me it seems like a multiverse theory, one where time travel is possible.

As this video explains, we don't know of a law making time travel impossible, but all the variations on our theories to permit time travel to the past seem to have a catch. Many time travel ideas are discussed, like an infinitely long cylinder that could form time loops which have no paradoxes because they repeat, but the catch is a really long cylinder won't do it and an infinitely long cylinder is impossible, and so on for the other cases.

The bottom line in the video is that we need a quantum theory of gravity to better evaluate the time travel hypotheses, which is likely true, since some of the time travel ideas involve things like black holes where a quantum gravity theory becomes relevant and would answer questions our current theories of relativity and quantum mechanics don't.

Is Time Travel Impossible?

Time travel stories are cool because both the past and future are somehow more interesting that the present and because everyone wants a redo. But so far it appears we’re doomed to live consumed by regret in the eternal, boring present. Time marches on, inexorably and only forward. Or so we thought until Einstein came along. His special and general theories of relativity changed the way we think about time forever, and believe it or not, their raw equations permit time travel. They even tell us how to do it. So let’s review the possibilities, and decide how possible they really are.

What if going back in time..... meant just that.
People assume that means there would be 2 of you ..... but what if going back to 1975, meant exactly that..... and that for me, going back to 1950 was not possible, because I was not born until 1966.
What if going back in time does not mean you get a "do over"..... only relive.
We remember the past, we don't remember the future.. Dr.Carroll

a reply to: Arbitrageur

When distances of 10^-35 meters appear beyond the rain and beyond the moon there still might be composites and geometries we don't have an understanding of. We don't have any trouble time traveling until the composite is observed.
The Einstein mission was for "the people" to have an understanding of science similar to the way they understood art. Einstein also was quoted as saying "you people should organize like us Jews". I'm not sure who he considered "the people" or "you people" but we saw where Einstein went home with the Einstein-Szilard letter. We haven't even explored as far as we could with the Davinci scientific secrets, so there are certainly plenty of dragons to reverse engineer.

originally posted by: moebius
You still have the problem of the alternate timeline getting energy (the time traveler) from nowhere.

Please forgive my ignorance, as this is outside of my field of knowledge. But wouldn't that still result in no useful energy for the Present? It seems to me the whole idea of thermodynamics (please correct me if I am wrong) is that you cannot build a machine to get a free lunch (more energy than what you input). If you send mass or energy to the past, it seems to me, Skieswanne found a way that this energy never reaches you in the present, actually enforcing the laws of thermodynamics, in your time frame. I might be misunderstanding thermodynamics laws though, in which case I would appreciate any clarification. I am also not sure if thermodynamics laws were designed to account for time travel and causality direction facing the past instead of the future. Which, if I might underline, is a problem that any time travel theory share.

Still, I must concede that it might be possible for someone in the past to witness a sudden out-pour of energy, which, for his time frame, could imply a free lunch. But then... could that not explain the Big Bang?

One day John Wheeler called the famous Richard Feynman:

"Feynman, I know why all electrons have the same charge and the same mass."

"Why?" Feynman asked.

"Because, they are all the same electron!"

Could it not be possible... that perhaps the reason why we cannot see a cause for the Big Bang... is that all its energy came from its future, and not its past?

I try to remind myself that time is personal.

When someone talks about hypothetical frames of reference where time is perceived differently depending on one's speed or proximity to varying gravity fields, I think it's important to remember that there is no such thing as seeing the passage of time from two different perspectives. There is only one. Your perspective. There is no hypothetical objective observer. If you somehow managed, to go "back in time," you're actually not going anywhere except plodding along in your life the same speed you always have. You just changed your location.

If you kill your grandfather before he has children, it doesn't make any difference to you because you already exist and the timeline you're in still includes a past where you did have a grandfather and you were born. So no difference. You're still moving forward in your own personal timeline. Nothing will change that, and any past or future that you interact with will always just be your present.

a reply to: Blue Shift

That's the general idea I propose, indeed. You have your own history, your own past.

a reply to: TaninimLong

Entropy laws apply to closed system. If Universe Present becomes capable of sending matter to Universe Past, the system is by definition not closed anymore.

Additionally, there is a constraint on the amount of mass/energy Universe Past can receive from Universe Present, and that amount is equal to the content of Universe Present.